Domestic Vs K-Pop— Which Market Brings Money To The “Big 4” Of K-Pop?

A market survey analyzing the income of the “Big 4” K-Pop companies, namely HYBE, SM Entertainment, YG Entertainment, and JYP Entertainment, has drawn special interest on Korean forums.

The survey was published by Hankyung, a Korean news publication, in 2024, based on data collected in 2023. It broke down the sales proportion of each of the companies, which came down as follows:

HYBE:

Domestic market- 36.3%
International market- 63.7%

SM Entertainment:

Domestic market- 68.5%
International market- 31.5%

YG Entertainment:

Domestic market- 52.7%
International market- 47.3%

JYP Entertainment:

Domestic market- 44.3%
International market- 55.7%

A viral post on Theqoo provided a little more perspective into these numbers by providing the comparative profits generated by each of these companies in 2024. In terms of total sales revenue, as well as profit, HYBE took the lead, followed by SM and JYP, respectively. However, when it came to net profit, JYP Entertainment took the lead, followed by YG Entertainment, SM Entertainment, and HYBE in the last position.

Netizens’ reaction to these numbers have been mixed, with different inferences drawn from them.

• “HYBE is running such big deficits—how are they managing to hold on?”
• “Still, at that level, SM’s overseas popularity has increased a lot. I’m curious about this year.”
• “I’m curious about this year’s figures. Since it was 2023, it might be a bit different now.”
• “This isn’t shocking at all. Do people still not know that SM isn’t popular overseas?
• “Doesn’t SM Entertainment have a lot of popularity in Japan and China?”
• “Where is HYBE spending all that money?”